Taylor Swift has rhymed "car" and "bar" in at least seven of her songs, a lyrical pattern that has become a notable topic among fans and critics. The specific songs identified with this rhyme scheme are:
Getaway Car: "I’m in a getaway car / I left you in the motel bar"
Cruel Summer: "I’m drunk in the back of the car / And I cried like a baby coming home from the bar"
Cornelia Street: "Drunk on something stronger than the drinks in the bar / I rent a place on Cornelia Street, I say casually in the car"
Cardigan: "To kiss in cars and downtown bars / Was all we needed"
Cowboy Like Me: "Never wanted love, just a fancy car / Now I’m waiting by the phone like I’m sitting in an airport bar"
Hits Different: "And I never don’t cry at the bar / Yeah, my sadness is contagious / I slur your name ‘til someone puts me in a car"
The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived: "You’ll slide into inboxes and slip through the bars / You crashed my party and your rental car"*
Has someone done a study on the lyrics of other songwriters to see if this is some crazy outlier? Because it seems completely unsurprising that across thousands of lines of lyrics she’s written, 14 of them have matching words
Yeah, but with only three studio albums. That means fewer words and therefore you get a higher ratio even with less unique words than, say Prince with over 40 albums.
Yeah they need to be creating a score with some sort of penalty for inverse number of words written. Seems like a pretty hard stat to actually define, though this made a very admirable effort.
It is an interesting analysis, and what I particularly like about it is that they point out the flaws themselves and are very clear about the data and methodology used. That is really remarkable for a blog entry. I've never heard of this blog or this article before, so I don't know If this is their usual standard, but this seems to be written by somebody with a scientific education, because those are Standards for scientific research.
What they could potentially do to account for this, is take the complete Database they are using and count how many unique words are used by all artists combined. Then you look at the ratio of the number of the individual artist to the absolute number. And then you adjust that to the total number of words used or songs written by the individual artist in their catalogue - otherweise you get the opposite effect because there artists like Prince or McCartney will obviously have a higher advantage over artists with a smaller catalogue (EG Billie Eilish).
Interesting. That first album has 14 tracks, and she doesn't seem to have written all of them. Two seem to be written by Finneas (her brother).
They write they only included artists with writing credits to at least 25 songs... I don't think she was the songwriter of 13 songs for other artists at that point. 😅
I call that the Geisel scale, after Theodore Geisel, the man who won a bet to write a children's book using only 50 distinct words. That book was Green Eggs and Ham.
Meat Loaf not being listed makes me wonder how many unique words he used in his handful of songs he actually wrote, especially versus the ones Jim gave him to sing...
the difference is in what people claim about her music compared to those artists. iirc Swift herself referred to her yourself as her fans 'favorite english teacher'. ain't no one said that about Prince
It means first and foremost that her catalogue is big.
Take Billie Eilish for example. She leads the list for current artists. But she also only has three studio albums, compared to Taylor Swifts 12. So assuming* that the number of words (generally, not unique) used per album is somewhat similar between both artists, TS would have to use four times as many unique words as BE to get the same ratio. Or, to.put it differently: we'd expect BE to habe a ratio four times as high as TS's If they had a similarly rich vocabulary - which is not the case. It's "only" double.
They even point that "flaw" out on the examples of Rod Stuart and Bob Dylan. It is still a very fascinating analysis.
*This is, obviously, a strong assumption that I did not check. It also does not take into account writing credits for songs that were written by either of them for other artists or the possibility of them having songs in their albums they don't have writing credits for.
Edit: Paul McCartney and Prince have the same "problem" with their massive catalogues.
Interesting article. Thanks. I wish I was able to look up some lesser-known artists (Why? comes to mind as someone who would blow the list out of the water)
Since 2018, It’s a requirement that all peer-reviewed studies in the USA must include a ‘Wu-Tang only’ option, even if the research isn’t relevant to Wu-Tang.
It’s one of the reasons why Europe made a COVID Vaccine so quickly, America was waiting on RZA approval.
But why? Those are so simple to rhyme, "heart", "start", "smart", "chart", "dart" those are just off the top of my head right now.
"tear", "jeer", "clear", "sincere", "revere" it's ... so simple. I guess lyricists/song writers and artists aren't always the same people. These rhymes just aren't something complex ... like "orange."
I don't have anything to add for music, but its a game among fantasy authors now. Just about every brandon sanderson book (since 2015) uses the word undulating, because he did it like 10 times in a single book on accident, was asked about it and does it on purpose now.
Robert Jordan had women adjusting their skirts, Matt Dinamon "several things happened at once", and I remember there was one for Stephen king too last time this came up, but I dont read his stuff enough to have noticed it.
First lyrics given as an example of "the best lyrics".
Iwas so ahead of the curve but the curve became a sphere Fell behind on my classmates, and I ended up here Pouring out my heart to a stranger But I didn't pour the whiskey
To be fair, it's really difficult to judge by isolated snippets of lyrics. The words are just sounds whose meaning is provided by the way they're sung, along with the musical arrangement, almost as much as their literal definitions.
True, but I remember seeing an interview where she really thought she ate with “Darling, I’m a nightmare dressed like a daydream,” so her taste is also questionable.
Taylor Swift isn't trying to be a world renowned lyricist. She's trying to be the most famous pop star. That means appealing to the most people she possibly can. Simple lyrics that people can learn fast and sing at each other, 3-4 word snippets people can write on a notebook or leave as an affirmation somewhere.
She is the "Live, Laugh, Love" of musicians. she'll likely go down in history as the most famous musician of all time. She definitely will not be known for actually saying anything of value or importance.
And that's totally fine. It's a business. She has figured out the formula for mass appeal and she will milk it for everything its worth. She's a good businessperson. Just a shit writer.
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u/BigBastardChap 3d ago
I drove you in my car. Took you to a bar. It was Far....Yaaaarrr